


Four Nights in Paris

by theremin



Category: Silicon Valley (TV)
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-12-02
Updated: 2019-12-14
Packaged: 2021-02-17 21:56:31
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 5
Words: 11,942
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21650398
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/theremin/pseuds/theremin
Summary: Richard and Jared are strangers on vacation in the City of Lights, and Christmas is just around the corner. This is basically a cheesy Hallmark Christmas movie.
Relationships: Jared Dunn/Richard Hendricks
Comments: 50
Kudos: 90





	1. Chapter 1

**DECEMBER 21st**

_"Ladies and gentlemen, we have now landed in Paris Charles de Gaulle airport. Local time is four thirty PM. We thank you for flying Air France and hope to see you again soon."_

Jared Dunn had butterflies. It had been a long flight, he should be exhausted, but he was mostly just excited. He'd dreamt of going to Paris since he'd been a moody chanson-obsessed teenager, and now he was here, for his annual Christmas vacation. 

Christmas had always been kind of a sore point for Jared. They'd mostly been pretty bad growing up. As a young man he'd taken any seasonal retail shifts he could get. As he got older he tried to find other Christmas traditions, like volunteering, but that kind of made him sad too. It was hard trying to have nice Christmas traditions on your own. And it wasn't _too_ bad back when it was just people carelessly asking him about his plans, but after social media came along and he had to look at everybody else's happy family Christmases the season just really depressed him. His dream had always been to fall in love with someone, someone with a nice normal family who would take him in as one of their own and let him share in all their little family traditions, or even just someone he could make his own traditions with, together. But his relationships never seemed to work out like that. 

One year his friend Gloria had invited him to her house for Christmas with her family and that had been pretty nice, but her grandson's wife, Beth, had updated her Facebook on the second day of Christmas with a picture of him and the text _Our very own Christmas stray! [Jared Dunn] doesn't have a family of his own, so we invited him to celebrate the holidays with us. It's so easy to get caught up in our own happiness and christmas cheer, and forget that this can be a tough time for so many sad and lonely people out there. Reach out to somebody you may think need it today, you might save a life <3_

Jared wasn't a very prideful man, but boy that post had taken whatever pride he did have and put it through the wringer. He'd considered himself a guest (and had agonised over buying thoughtful little presents for everyone), not a sad, lonely, suicidal charity case. The post got more than 800 likes and fifty comments calling Beth an angel and a good person, which she all replied to with prayer hands emoji. Jared wanted to pretend he hadn't seen it, but since she'd literally tagged him that wasn't exactly possible, so he'd commented a brief "Thanks for a great night :)" and then muted her from his feed, which was the cruellest revenge he could think of.

Gloria had been livid about it, and had referred to Beth as a bitch so many times the next time he'd talked to her he'd actually asked her to dial it back. She'd asked him back to the house the next year promising she'd talk to "that bitch" Beth beforehand, but he'd said no. He'd already booked a ticket to Reykjavik. 

Reykjavik was perfect. Jared loved amateur photography, especially of birds, and the quiet streets and beautiful nature had given him so many great shots (that holiday pushed his birding Instagram account over 10k followers). On Christmas Day he'd stayed in the AirBnB, cooked a nice meal, turned off his phone and re-read Anne of Green Gables. On New Year he'd gone out and ended up talking to a bunch of drunk Icelanders, got himself invited to a party in a warehouse and slept with an incredibly hot guy called Arnaldur. God, that had been a good holiday. After Reykjavik he'd gone to Copenhagen, which was also great, and this year - Paris. So this was his Christmas tradition now. He'd actually started looking forward to Christmas for the first time in his life, planning his vacations in a little spreadsheet, it was something to toy with and cheer him up whenever everybody else's plans started getting him down.

He was really excited about this one. He knew exactly where he wanted to live - the Ile de la Cite, the little Seine island where the Notre Dame was located. He had a search up on AirBnB and finally the perfect little studio showed up. It was on the sixth floor (no elevator but amazing view), it was very tiny (just one small room with a kitchenette and a fold out bed and a very tiny bath with a bathtub) but it had a balcony. He pictured himself standing on that balcony with a warm tea mug in his hands, looking all the way to the Eiffel tower. The bath even had a big window, so he could sit in the tub and look over the city if he wanted to. From the pictures he suspected he might actually be too tall to fit in the tub, but by god, he'd try. And it had a record player. Most AirBnbs he'd stayed in didn't really have a homey feel and seemed to be mostly furnished with the cheapest essentials from Ikea or Walmart, but he suspected Luc the host put the stuff he didn't want anymore in his own place in his rental. It had tchotchkes on every ledge, a shelf full of books, aforesaid record player where other people might put a TV, very nice old fashioned curtains. It was a little cluttered for such a small space, but Jared liked the look of it. It was eccentric. And he had some serious record shopping to do, and was excited by the prospect of not having to wait to play them until he got home.

The reviews, however, were... split. "Nice place but Luc is the rudest host I have ever encountered", "great location but we didn't get the key until the day after we were supposed to and had to get a hotel in the middle of July!!!", "the apartment is fine but Luc sucks". Luc also replied to most of the negative comments with defensive tirades. "Is my fault if bar close before you come to pick up key? you think this is holiday inn? stupid spanish bitch", "it say in descpton no elevator you fat idiot sorry for making u exersise for 1st time", "thank you for your review and for leaving the shit in toilet connard". This admittedly scared Jared a little. But the apartment was so exactly what he wanted, he'd decided to take a chance on it.

On the train into the city centre he opened the app and messaged Luc. 

_I've landed and I'm on my way :) I think I should be at the apartment in around 45 minutes :)_

Five minutes later, Luc replied.

_cool i ask richard to give you the key. he stay there now_

Jared frowned. Was Richard the previous tenant? A ball of worry formed in his gut but he tried to ignore it. All the reviews indicated this Luc guy was kind of a flake, but in less than an hour he'd know whether he had cause to worry or not, no reason to get nervous yet.

_Sounds great :)_

When Jared got to the apartment, lugging his suitcase up the six stairs, he knocked timidly on the door he assumed was the right one. There was no reply. After ten minutes, he started to get antsy. After twenty minutes, he called Luc. 

_"Ouais?"_

"Yes uh bonjour c'est Luc? Um c'est Jared, Jared Dunn? Je suis dans l'appartement mais uh n'est pas Richard?"

_"Quoi?"_

Jared hadn't actually practiced his self-taught French (another souvenir of his francophile period) in real life and realised it was probably impossible to understand.

"Um would it be better if I spoke in English? I apologise for my French."

_"N'est pas Richard?"_

"Um, uhh well, I'm at the apartment and there's nobody here?"

 _"Oooh lala,"_ Luc sighed. _"je l'appelle."_

Then Jared saw someone come running up the stairs, and stop, hanging on to the bannister, dripping with sweat, and stare at him.

"Umm, Luc, actually, nevermind, I think he's here."

_"Il est la?"_

"Yes, uh, I think so."

 _"Super! 'Ave a nice 'oliday!"_ Luc said and hung up. 

"Are.. are you Richard?" Jared asked the man, who was still holding onto the bannister, wheezing.

The man threw up.

* * *

Two weeks earlier, Richard Hendricks had suffered a breakdown. He'd been at work, on god knows what consecutive hour (they were in a crunch), and he'd just apparently fallen to the floor, eyes rolling back in his head, foam at his mouth, the full Mia Wallace. He couldn't actually remember any of this, he'd woken up at the hospital and the idea of going back to work made him vomit. Literally. 

Luckily, Hooli had given him paid leave until over the New Year and assured him his insurance would cover any hospital fees. Richard suspected this had something to do with the new slogan, Hooli Cares. Hooli, being a multinational coorporate entity and therefore incapable of emotion, obviously didn't give a single shit about Richard Hendricks or any other human being on the planet, but they'd spent a few million on that ad campaign and a story on the tech blogs on how they worked their programmers to dust as if they were Amazon warehouse serfs might not be good for the brand. So he suddenly had a lot of time off and figured it would be put to best use getting some work done on his pet project, Pied Piper.

Only one problem.

Sitting down with his MacBook gave him heart palpitations.

So he'd gone back to his doctor, and they'd had a chat and Richard had drawn some blood and had his heartbeat listened to.

"Richard," his doctor asked. "have you heard of something called digital detox?"

Richard snorted. "What, like, for housewives to go to a retreat in some teepee and try not to post about it on Instagram? I'm a programmer, I can't exactly like not use computers."

"Well, you have this time off, I suggest you try it. Or you can recreate The Exorcist on the floor of Hooli's open plan office again, I don't really care as long as your insurance checks out."

Richard had stuttered at that - his doctor was just so fucking unpleasant? - but he'd also mulled it over. He supposed he could go home to Tulsa early for Christmas. Just... play old PlayStation games and watch some TNG. As he was standing on the street waiting for his Lyft he got a phone call from his sister Emily, the flight attendant.

"Um hey, Em," he said, wondering if word had got to his parents about his breakdown. She didn't exactly call often, and neither did he. He hadn't told anybody abut the whole medical situation and didn't want to, either.

_"Hey baby bro! Listen, I have an early Christmas present for you if you want it!"_

"Oh uh, what?"

_"Well you know how we get these free flights every once in a while? Do you wanna go to Paris tomorrow?"_

"What?"

_"It's a return flight, six days, last minute. I've asked a few people but nobody has time. But I thought I'd ask you too. I could issue the return to Tulsa and we can pick you up at the airport for Christmas on the 21st. What do you say?"_

Richard smiled. "I say, yeah, that sounds perfect. Thank you!"

*

So Richard had booked a reasonable AirBnB which seemed pretty central, bought a dumbphone Samsung for texts and messages, an Instax camera and a bunch of overpriced film for photos, and left his MacBook and iPhone at home. He got by with an old fashioned map, asked people for directions and suggestions, and had a pretty good and genuinely relaxing vacation. He read like ten books. He got up when he wanted, sat in cafes and sketched out ideas for Pied Piper with pen and paper, went to museums his guidebook said were interesting (he spent hours in the Paleontology and Anatomy one), saw movies in the cinematheques, and just generally enjoyed being... away. He'd never particularly wanted to go to Paris or Europe at all but he had to admit, it was pretty impressive. He didn't even think about it when Luc, the apartment host, asked him to pass the key to the next guy at six on the day of his departure. His flight to Tulsa was at 10pm, so that would give him ample time to get out to the airport. He packed up his suitcase (full of Christmas presents for his family) and decided to take one final walk. He took a wrong turn somewhere and sighed, wondering where the hell he was, got his map out of his backpack and let it sit on the ground while he tried figuring it out. He didn't register the sound of a motorcycle coming up behind him, but jumped to the side when it almost grazed him. 

"Watch out," he said, offended, and then his mouth fell open as he realised the guy sitting on the motorcycle speeding away was holding his backpack.

With his passport.

And his tickets.

And his wallet.

Even his shitty Samsung.

Pretty much the only things of note he didn't have was the AirBnB key, which Richard was so paranoid of losing he wore it on a chain around his neck, and the Instax camera which he'd put in the suitcase earlier. 

So Richard had spent a few very stressful hours going to the police, who let him use a computer to cancel his cards, then going to the American embassy to organise a replacement passport, then in the middle of that realising oh shit fuck the AirBnB guy and running out with the receptionist saying something behind him, remembered he didn't have any more metro tickets or his fucking wallet, ran all the way from the embassy to the Ile de la Cite and up six flights of stairs.

Richard grabbed onto the bannister for support as he felt his legs give out underneath him and looked up at a very tall, very pale, very concerned looking man who asked him, "Are... are you Richard?"

Then he threw up.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> oH nO wHeRe WiLL RiChArD sPeNd ThE nIgHt? this is the most self indulgent thing and I should be ashamed but whateva I do what I want, we have like one measly episode left.
> 
> My review of the last ep: pretty damn good! The tech was questionable and the breakthrough didn't feel quite as earned as similar situations in the past, but after the substandard past couple of eps - Russ jumping up the stairs? Richard in that knight hoodie? BITCHARD? "You never smile. You never kiss me"? was just what I needed!


	2. Chapter 2

"What a day you've had!" Jared said. Somehow Richard had managed to lock them in, and Jared had gotten him a towel and some water and pushed him down to sit on the sofa, then wordlessly gone to clean up the mess in the hallway, then made them both cups of tea, while Richard had garblingly recounted the shitshow.

"Yeah it uh," Richard said. "fuck my life."

"Well, what are you going to do now?" Jared asked, curiously.

"Umm go back to the embassy I guess? They have to help me, right? I have no money, I have no passport, I'm fucked."

Jared frowned. "Are they still open?"

"Um? What? They don't close, do they?"

Jared got his phone out. "Office hours until six. It's six thirty now."

Richard groaned a long groan. "I'm fucked, I'm fucked." He stared at Jared. "Uh, dude. Could I, could I borrow some money? Like fifty euros? Maybe there's like a youth hostel nearby? Could you google it for me? I'll PayPal you when this is all worked out, I swear to fucking god."

Jared opened a hostel app and frowned, putting in the day's date. "Umm, the only availability I can find is several miles outside the city centre."

Richard groaned again.

Jared sighed. This wasn’t exactly ideal, but he’d been in some desperate situations himself and didn’t wish them on anyone. "Why don't you just stay here tonight, Richard."

Richard turned to look at him, blinked. "I... that would actually be... super nice. But um." He waved his hand around. "Like, this is it, you know. There aren't any more rooms. The bed? We're sitting on it."

Jared shrugged. "I'll stick to my side if you stick to yours.”

“I don’t know what to say man. Thank you.” Richard smiled. It was a very nice smile. It made him better-looking. His mouth was wide and his front teeth were big and his grin made his whole face light up like a Las Vegas slot machine when you got three cherries in a row. It made Jared smile back. 

“Are you hungry?” Jared asked. “I’m starving. Are there any supermarkets around?”

Richard explained how to get to the closest one and Jared left him in the apartment to go pick up some supplies. After nearly an hour he returned with two bags full of groceries in hand to find Richard, wearing only a towel, sitting with his suitcase open in front of him and holding a pair of jeans up to his face.

“Um. What are you doing?”

Richard blushed a deep red, all the way down to his wiry chest. “I took a shower because I was sweaty, but I forgot I don’t have any clean clothes left. I’m trying to figure out which clothing I have stinks the least.”

Jared laughed. He walked over to his own suitcase and pulled out a T-shirt and a pair of boxer shorts. Richard got up, took off the towel (well, okay) and pulled them on, smiling gratefully. “God, you must think I’m a lunatic.”

“Why don’t you give me the clothes you have you’d like to wear?”

Richard frowned. “What like, my dirty…” He picked up a hoodie, a T-shirt and a pair of jeans and socks. Jared smiled and went to dump them in the bathtub, then turned the water on. He got a bottle of Dr Bronner’s Liquid Soap out of his suitcase. 

“Were you a boyscout or something?” Richard asked, frowning.

“Always prepared,” Jared said. “why don’t you unpack the groceries.”

Admittedly, Jared hadn’t pictured his first night in Paris on his knees in front of the bathtub handscrubbing a mugging victim’s dirty jeans, but he really didn’t mind. He loved to feel useful. It was always a risk sharing close quarters with a stranger, but Richard didn’t seem very threatening. And he was skinny as anything, as he’d just seen. He felt pretty sure he could overpower him if things got really weird. He wrung out the clothes as much as he could, then went into the main room to drape them over the radiator. His lips parted when he saw a table and two chairs had appeared seemingly out of nowhere and Richard had arranged the food Jared had bought on it – bread, olives, cheese, hummus - and opened the wine.

“Heavens, where did that come from?”

“Huh? The table? It’s a fold-down, see? It was folded up to the wall before. The chairs fold up too, they were hooked on the wall there, next to the door.”

“Very clever,” Jared said. He finished arranging Richard’s clothes on the radiator and joined him at the table.

"So um uh, where are you from?" Richard asked, biting into an olive.

"I live in Palo Alto," Jared said.

"What? Seriously? Me too."

Jared smiled. "Really? Small world! Are you in tech too?"

"Yes!" Richard grinned. "I'm uh, an engineer at Hooli?"

" _I_ work for Hooli," Jared said. "that's crazy.”

"Are you an engineer too?"

"No, I'm more on the biz dev side," Jared said. "I really admire what you guys do though. I wish I had the skill set."

“I don’t know,” Richard said. “I’m trying to get my own thing going right now, but I went to this like, uh, event? Where people who want to start their own businesses can talk to investors and shit? And they were all like, so what’s your vision, what’s your business plan, what’s your budget, and I was like, I don’t fucking know.” Richard sighed. “Seems you guys have a pretty important skill set too.”

“I could take a look at your app,” Jared offered. 

Richard stared. “For real?”

Jared shrugged. “Sure. I’ve got a laptop with me, show me when we’re done eating.”

They talked about Hooli and Gavin Belson and the crazy rental prices in San Francisco and Theranos and Twitter. Jared liked Richard. He was nice and funny and easy to talk to. He also looked kind of adorable drowning in Jared’s T-shirt. As strange as the situation was, Jared felt like his Christmas vacation was off to a fun start. And the food was really good, even if it was just supermarket fare. When they finished it Jared pulled out his laptop and copied the Wifi password from a little frame on the ledge. 

“So uh, this is it,” Richard said, opening a website. “it’s called Pied Piper? Like uh, like the fairy tale? Because he was a musician, see and you can use it to search music libraries.”

“Didn’t the piper murder children?” Jared frowned.

Richard grimaced. “That’s just implied. It’s a good name!”

“So does it search metadata?”

“No! That’s what makes it different. It searches audio.”

“So like Shazam?”

“No, well uh kind of, but uh...” Richard explained the tech and Jared nodded politely. He couldn’t really envision a profitable use for an audio search app. “I’ll, I’ll show you the demo,” he said, excited, then stopped. “um, actually, could I log into Facebook? I should probably let the people at home know I’m okay, I just briefly skyped my mom at the police station earlier, she’s probably got everybody panicking.”

“Oh, of course!”

Richard logged in and Jared glanced over at Richard's Facebook page. He had a bunch of notifications from someone called Emily Jones.

"Emily seems to be worried," Jared smiled.

"Yeah uh this trip was um a present from her. Uh. I should, uh." Richard logged into Skype and called her up, and a young, pretty woman's face filled the computer screen.

_"Oh my god, Richard! What happened?"_

"I uh I got mugged…"

_"Oh god!"_

"Like, it wasn't like, violent or scary, someone on a motorcycle literally snatched my backpack? But like, fuck me, it's chaos, all my stuff was in there. I've been to the police and the embassy…"

_"What do you need? You need money?"_

"Ummm yeah but like uh I guess maybe a wire transfer? Tomorrow? I have to research this shit. Like, I have no cards, no phone, no ID, nothing, you know?"

_"I can look into it. Where are you now? Where are you staying tonight?"_

"I'm uh I'm at the AirBnB. Um, the guy who's renting it after me is um, helping me out. I'm using his laptop right now. Look I'll talk to you tomorrow maybe?"

_"Yeah call me if you can okay? God, I'm so sorry Richard. Love you."_

"Uh yeah love you too uh."

Jared smiled. Richard's girlfriend seemed nice. They both just seemed like nice, normal, caring people. And he worked at Hooli too! Jared wondered if they could maybe make friends. That would be great. He didn't really have a lot of guy friends. To like, "bro down" with. But Richard seemed so kind, and was so fun to talk to. And they already had a fantastic "how did you guys become friends" story. Maybe it was a longshot, but Jared would try his best to make it happen. 

"Is um, is it okay if I friend request you?" Richard asked, and Jared wondered if he'd said something out loud. He leaned over and searched himself up, and Richard added him.

*

It was late, the bottle of wine was nearly empty, and both Jared and Richard were blinking to stay awake.

“I don’t think we can put it off any longer,” Jared said and Richard wheezed a laugh. They got up and Richard reached to the underside of the sofa, flipped it up, folded it until he heard a click, and then it unfolded flat. He reached up in the high closet and got the duvet out, which he’d changed into clean bedding earlier in the day, and Jared found two pillows. 

“Head to feet?” Jared asked. Richard frowned, seemingly trying to work out what he’d just said, then snorted and nodded. Jared threw one pillow down on each side of the bed.

"Ummm Jared. I think you may be too long for this bed. It’s almost too short for me."

Jared lay down, frowned, and Richard burst out laughing as Jared’s ankles and feet stuck outside the edge. "Well, I’ve got something for that too," Jared said and got up, found a pair of long grey socks in his suitcase and put them on.

"Man that sucks."

Jared shrugged. "Par for the course."

Richard got in next to him, with his head next to Jared’s sock clad calves. He turned away on his side to make himself smaller and put a little more space between them. “Good night, Jared.”

“Good night, Richard.”

*

**DECEMBER 22nd**

“The 26th?” Richard asked incredulously. “I can’t get my passport until then? That’s four days from now!!” 

“It’s the holidays,” the receptionist in the embassy said apologetically. “things kind of grind to a standstill.”

“B-b-but what do I do in the meantime? I don’t have any money, or a place to stay?”

The receptionist gave him an envelope. “These are emergency funds. 400 euros in cash. Unfortunately all our properties are booked full, but you should be able to find a hotel. Save all the receipts and come back here if you run out of money. In there is also a letter from the embassy vouching for your identity, so you should be able to check in. I’ll do my best to speed this whole process up, but I’m afraid I can’t make any promises.”

“Thanks,” Richard said a little hopelessly, and carried his suitcase back outside, wondering where to go to find an alright hotel.

He’d slept surprisingly well, considering he was sleeping next to some random dude he’d known for literally hours, but with an incredibly stressful day behind him and half a bottle of wine inside him sleep had come fast and deep. He’d thanked Jared profusely and blushingly accepted 40 euros from him for a taxi to the embassy when they got up in the morning. He’d pretty much assumed he’d be on his way home the same day or maybe the next, but now he was yet again stranded in Paris, but at least he had a little cash. He sighed and walked off to try and find a hotel. It started to snow.

*

Jared spent the day sightseeing, combing through record stalls, taking pictures and generally enjoying himself, but he couldn’t help but wonder how Richard was doing. He wished he had a way to check in with him. He could message him on Facebook, of course, but he wasn’t sure when he’d get a reply. He’d do it anyway, he decided. Sitting in a small cafe, having an airy omelette and strong coffee, he got his phone out and DM’d Richard. 

_Hey! Hope everything worked out!_

He wondered if he should write anything else but decided to leave it at that. He smiled thinking about last night. It really had been fun. He daydreamed a little bit about reconnecting with Richard when he got back home, becoming real friends, hanging out. Maybe Richard would introduce him to his girlfriend, his other friends. Jared smiled. It probably wouldn’t come to much, but it was a nice little fantasy. 

When it got close to seven in the evening Jared’s feet really hurt so he found a Chinese takeaway with decent vegetarian options and walked up the stairs of the apartment building carrying a bag with fried rice, spring rolls, salt and pepper tofu and szechuan tofu. He wondered if maybe he’d overdone it a bit but whatever, he was on holiday, right? He frowned as he saw someone sit huddled next to the apartment’s front door. 

“Richard?”

* * *

Turns out finding a hotel room in Paris without your fucking phone close to Christmas was easier said than done. Richard went to nearly two dozen hotels. Most of them didn’t have rooms, and the few who did didn’t want to give him one without proper ID. After two and a half hours of lugging around his suitcase and being told there was no room at the inn he was so sick of it he could scream. When the last hotel had told him, sorry monsieur but we are all booked out, he’d gone back to the Ile de la Cite and decided to wait for Jared. Last night had been pretty fun? Maybe he wouldn’t mind helping him out some more? At the very least he could pay him back the 40 euros.

“Richard?”

Richard looked up at Jared and felt stupid. His whole body hurt after sitting huddled there for hours. And just because Jared had been nice last night didn’t mean the guy wanted to spend his whole vacation looking after Richard’s dumb ass, giving him money and scrubbing his gussets and feeding him olives. He should never have come back here, he should-

Jared smiled warmly and reached out a hand. Richard grabbed it and let himself be pulled up.

“What are you doing here?”

“Um, I uh, my passport isn't ready yet so they gave me some money to check into a hotel with, but I can’t fucking find anything with a vacancy. Do you think, um, do you think...”

“You can stay for as long as you need to,” Jared said. “oh, you must be freezing!”

Richard’s shoulders fell down with relief. “Yeah,” Richard said in a whiny voice.

Jared smiled again. “Do you like Chinese food?”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Trying real hard to keep this to the projected 5 chapters and not ramble on forever like usual O_o


	3. Chapter 3

They went to bed late, like the night before, head to feet. 

"So uh," Richard started, hoping he wasn't out of line, staring at the ceiling. "are you like going to spend Christmas here?"

"Yes, that's the plan," Jared replied from the other side of the bed. 

"Do you have family out here?"

"I don't have family anywhere, to my knowledge. Christmas isn't my favourite holiday."

Richard cringed. "I'm sorry, man. It's none of my business."

"It's okay, you couldn't know. The last three years I've gone abroad, to different countries. I've seen some great places!"

"That's cool," Richard said thoughtfully. "you took a negative and turned it to a positive."

Jared was oddly moved by that assessment. "Yeah, I guess."

Richard got up on his elbows. "What have you got planned for tomorrow?"

Jared sat up too, hugged his knees and smiled a little shyly. "I'm actually going to a cemetery right outside town. When I was a teenager I discovered this French singer called Barbara? I was in a foster home with an extensive record collection, and my foster brother would tease me and say I looked like her. I don't think that's true, she was very dramatic looking and beautiful, but um, he did harbour some anti-Semitic sentiment and both me and Barbara are obviously Jewish in appearance..." he moved a hand around his face. "but I thought I'd listen, and oh, what a voice! I was a little obsessed for a while, I even tried learning French." He laughed. "I don't listen to her much now, because it's quite dark, painful music and I try to be cheerful, but it really helped at the time. So I always thought, if I ever get to Paris, I'm putting flowers on her grave, as a thank you." He smiled. "I know, it's weird."

"No, it's cool," Richard said. "is it okay if I come with you?"

"Well of course, if you want to," Jared said, surprised. 

Richard yawned and lay back down. "Play me something of hers off Youtube?"

"Sacrilege!" Jared laughed. "No way. I'm looking for some of her records on this trip, if I find something I'll play it for you on the record player, not the phone. I'm really hoping to find her first record. It's a live recording from 1959. She used to sing at this bar called L'Ecluse, so it's just called Barbara a L'Ecluse. It's pretty rare and usually goes for hundreds of dollars, but I'm hoping I'll get lucky. I have a good feeling."

"I'll help you look for it," Richard offered.

"You really don't have to."

"Well, what am I gonna do all day, sit around here? I'd rather hang out with you."

Jared laid back down too. He tried to remind himself Richard was both grateful for the help and had precisely zero other options, because a glowing sort of fondness was starting to throb and grow inside him. Most people were just weirded out by his hobbies or interests, they didn't offer to come along, ask to be played a song, want to help. If he stumbled over a shitty copy of Barbara's "Nantes" or "Ma Plus Belle Histoire d'Amour" he'd buy it just so he could play it for Richard.

"Thanks," he said after what was probably a weird long time, but Richard was already asleep.

* * *

**DECEMBER 23d**

It had taken them an hour and a half to get out to the cemetery, and another twenty minutes to track down the grave. They probably would have missed it if all the flowers hadn't made Jared take a second look. It was a fairly modest family grave and among the several names on it was Barbara's real name, Monique Serf. 

"I thought you said she was huge in France?" Richard said. "weird it's not like uh. Flashier."

Jared put down his bouquet of white roses. "Voila combien de jours, voila combien de nuits, voila combien les temps que tu es reparti." he declared. "That's from a song she wrote. Here's how many days, here's how many nights, here's how much time since you went away. Her fans sung it at her funeral. In the refrain she asks her lover when he will return to her." Jared started singing in a thin voice. "Dis, quand reviendras-tu? Dis, au moins le sais-tu..."

Richard reached out and put a hand on his arm. It was a weird gesture but he wasn't sure what else to do. Jared laughed and covered his hand with his own. "Oh, I'm getting emotional!"

Richard looked at him, tall, ungainly, in a dark blue peacoat and a home knitted scarf, getting tearful over the grave of a woman he'd never met. Richard wasn't the type to initiate a hug, and he wasn't going to do it now either, but something about Jared just really made him want to draw him close and shield him from the world. Jared looked at him with clear blue eyes and a smile that went down at the corners, his large hand warm over Richard's.

That was the moment Richard Hendricks decided to give Jared Dunn the best fucking Christmas of his life.

*

Richard decided he'd need some supplies for this Christmas thing to work out, and they stopped at a large Monoprix supermarket and he dug into his embassy money to buy some decorations and ingredients to make his mom's special hot chocolate. Jared looked with bemusement at the tinsel and red candles in his shopping basket but didn't comment. Next Jared wanted to go to a big flea market. Well, it was called a flea market, but it was pretty upscale. Some stalls had expensive antiques and elaborate displays, but Jared beelined for the record stalls. Richard followed him and started flipping through the records too, then his fingers stopped.

The record cover was black with a white, intense looking face on it, and had the title Barbara a L'Ecluse. Holy shit, this was it, wasn't it? It was the record Jared was talking about last night? He looked at the price. 300 euros. Yikes. He left it and walked over to Jared.

"What was the title of that rare record you wanted to find?"

"Barbara a L'Ecluse?"

"Okay, cool, I'll look for it."

"Don't bother," Jared said. "this guy seems to specialise in 80s junk. Look at this." He held up a record with a grinning man and woman wearing spandex and sweat bands on the cover, pulling power poses. It looked like a compilation of French aerobics music and cost two euros. 

Richard grinned. "Oh, I'm getting that for Emily. She'll love it."

Jared smiled wanly. "Okay. Let's go sit down somewhere, I'd like a drink."

They found a little cafe among the stalls and Jared got them both cafe au laits. "Oh uh," Richard said. "I'm uh, just going to find the bathrooms."

He backtracked to the stall, counted out his money. He had nearly 350 euros left. He could manage with 50 euros over a couple of days couldn't he? He'd bought a bunch of metro tickets that morning, he'd need a tenner for the train into the airport. Yeah, it should be okay. He found the record and took it up to the vendor.

"Tres bon choix, monsieur!"

"Yeah, yeah, I know it's rare." Richard didn't even feel bad about not trying to speak French, he didn't fucking know any and so far everybody had just flipped to English when they realised he was American anyway.

"Is very rare," the vendor said and pulled the record out, indicated a scribble on the inner cover. "see that? Is her signature. Tous mon amour, Barbara. I tried to put on ebay, but she is not so famous anymore."

Richard grinned. Definitely worth the 300 euros. "Awesome." He put it in the same bag as the cheap record he'd bought for Emily. He couldn't wait to see Jared's face on Christmas morning. 

After they'd finished looking around the flea market they found a vegan Vietnamese restaurant Jared wanted to try, which had really good (and to Richard's relief, really cheap) food, and then decided to walk back to the apartment, along the Seine. Richard had 35 euros left in his wallet.

"See that," he said, indicating a building. "that's the American embassy."

"Oh," Jared said. "did you want to go inside?"

Richard shrugged. He hadn't really planned to. "Might as well I guess, ask for an update."

Jared nodded and pointed at a pharmacy across the street. "I'm going in there, find me when you're done."

Richard walked in the embassy and the receptionist smiled when she saw him. "Mister Hendricks! I sent you an email, did you see it?"

"No?" Richard said, put his hands on the desk. "What happened?"

She grinned and handed him a folder. "I got the office to send it by express mail. There's your replacement passport, and a plane ticket for New York with a change for Tulsa, departing tomorrow night. Merry Christmas!"

"Oh uh. Wow um. Thanks that's uh."

"Aren't you happy?"

"Yeah uh this is great. Can't wait to be back with the uh family. Yeah thanks. Merry Christmas."

He put the folder in the bag with his records and went to find Jared in the pharmacy, staring intently at two different kinds of toothpaste.

"Anything new?" he asked when he saw Richard.

"Nothing," Richard said. "guess I'm stuck here."

Jared smiled.

Back at the apartment Richard started decorating. He lit red candles, put tinsel on the ledges and curtain rod, put a happy santa on top of the books. Jared put on one of the records he'd bought at the market, and warm, crackly music filled the room. It sounded weirdly familiar. _Quand il prend ma main, il n'y a pour moi qu'un seul garcon sur la terre..._

"Oh, you made it look so pretty!" Jared enthused, clasping his hands together.

Richard scratched his head. It looked kind of cheap. But Jared was happy and it was the thought that counted, right? Outside it had started snowing heavily. The streets were lit up with Christmas decorations which sparkled against the darkness of the sky.

"Decorations are up," he said solemnly. "now we drink the hot chocolate."

He went to the tiny kitchenette and measured out milk and cocoa and sugar and cinnamon like he remembered his mom doing it, tasted to get it right, whisked so it wouldn't burn. He got two mugs from the mismatched selection in the cupboard and filled them, handed one to Jared and sat down next to him on the sofa, looked expectantly at him as he sipped it.

"Oh," Jared said, both hands on the mug, sighing. "that's so good."

"Old Hendricks recipe, very secret," Richard said and tried his own. "yeah, it's okay. But you have to try my mom's one day. It'll knock you out."

*

They got to bed at a comparatively sensible hour that night, around midnight, as they were both completely shot.

"How many miles do you think we walked today?" Richard asked.

"Ten thousand," Jared groaned. "my feet hurt so bad."

Richard was quiet for a little bit, then he got up on his elbows and turned towards Jared. He pulled off one of the long, grey socks Jared slept in.

"Uh, what are you doing?" Jared asked, raising himself up.

"Um. You'll see." He pulled off the other sock too and let it fall to the floor. He took Jared's left foot in one hand and used the other to rub rough circles into it. "Is this okay?" he asked. "I haven't actually given a foot rub before."

Jared smiled. "Stop."

Richard let go, blushed. "Sorry."

Jared turned on his side, towards Richard, not quite flush against him but close, leaning up on one arm. He took a hold of one of his feet, supporting it, used the other to gently rub at the top of his toes with his fingertips. "It's usually better to start at the top. Follow my lead."

"Uhhh uh okay." 

Richard grabbed onto Jared's foot again and mimicked his movements. Then Jared sort of gently pulled at Richard's toes and Richard did the same to him. Jared thought he could hear Richard gulp. He gently, slowly started pushing the heel of his hand into Richard's arch and heel, drawing shapes. 

"Is that okay?" Jared asked.

"Uhhh yeahh."

"Usually you can be a little rougher in this area, but if you're as sore as me right now I'm not going to risk it."

"That's uhh that's perfect. Does this feel good? What I'm doing?"

"You can be even gentler," Jared said. Richard softened his movements. "oh, _just_ like that." His arms goosebumped and he sighed.

"This would be the weirdest position to fall asleep in," Richard said in a drowsy, almost hoarse voice. Jared huffed a laugh. He reached for Richard's other foot and Richard mirrored the movement, started working his toes, showing off new found skill. They fell silent, and Jared's breath sounded very loud inside his head. Then Richard gasped and Jared smiled at first, thinking he'd hit a tense spot, but then he realised his hard dick was pressing into Richard's stomach. He rolled away but the wall stopped him before he could get very far, so he just rolled over on his back, drew his feet away from Richard's touch.

"Well thank you Richard!" he said, tried to make his voice even. "That was very nice! Do you think you could give me my socks?"

"Umm," Richard said, picking them up off the floor and handing them to him.

"Thank you!" Jared said again, grinning maniacally, not meeting his eye while he pulled them on. "Good night!" He turned over on his side, facing the wall, willing his erection away. He'd finally met a nice, normal, age appropriate guy, someone who could maybe be a work friend and a real life friend, someone he got on with so well, and his stupid body went and betrayed him with desire. Richard was straight. Richard had a girlfriend who was nice and pretty and he bought cheesy records for as a joke. Admittedly, the position they were just in _was_ kind of questionable, but Jared was just too old to be someone's experiment or side piece or cause of relationship drama. 

"Jared," Richard said in a thin voice and put a hand on his ankle. 

"Good night," Jared said again, firmly, kicking away a little. 

There was a beat, then Richard removed his hand and laid back down. "Good night."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> [Here's Barbara singing "Dis, quand reviendras-tu?"](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nUE80DTNxK4). She also wrote some incredibly dark songs about being abused by her mentally ill and eventually homeless father ("Nantes" is about being called to his deathbed), so I feel like a young Jared could probably relate.
> 
> And [here's the song](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mDLwVc65YRk) Jared plays in the apartment, Tiny Yong's "Un Seul Garcon Sur La Terre". Richard might have heard the anglophone version, "The Boy of the Year". The lyrics translate to "when he takes my hand, he's the only boy in the world for me".
> 
> This chapter co-written with Quentin Tarantino.


	4. Chapter 4

**DECEMBER 24th**

Richard walked down the street to the bakery. He'd volunteered to get some fresh bread for breakfast. Things hadn't really been weird when they got up, Jared had been almost aggressively upbeat and made him an espresso, cheerfully maneuvring around the tiny space (it was almost impossible when the sofa was folded out) and humming. 

"Bonjour," Richard was greeted when he entered the bakery. Even after more than a week, it still gave him a kind of Beauty and the Beast thrill. 

"Bong shore," Richard replied. He bought a crusty baguette with his meagre funds. He wondered what it would be like to like, live like this, long term? For a year maybe? If Pied Piper took off, he could technically work anywhere. A former classmate at Stanford had invented software that let employees clock in and out for their shifts and sold it to businesses who still did it the analogue way, and he'd spent the last three years bumming around South East Asia, doing customer support via skype and troubleshooting on his laptop.

Walking back to the apartment he thought about Operation Great Fucking Christmas. He'd decorated. He'd made the hot chocolate. He had the perfect gift. He wondered if Jared had seen any of the classic Christmas movies? They could maybe find some streams. It's a Wonderful Life. A Muppet Christmas Carol. Holiday Inn. They could just like, lie in bed with the laptop and watch schmaltz. 

And maybe like, talk about what had happened last night. 

That had been pretty bold of Richard, to initiate like, consensual touching. Usually he was the one who had to be initiated. He wished he could have been even bolder, and not let Jared like, abort operations when they really got interesting. Maybe Jared didn't think he'd be into it? Uh, wrong. God, he wished he didn't suck so bad at these things. 

When he got back to the apartment (warm and inviting after the chill outside) Jared was still in his pajamas and comfy grey socks, had made the bed back into a sofa, and decked out a breakfast table. His hair was a little messy. He grinned at him. Richard grinned back, felt all kinds of fluttery inside. Yeah, he was into this.

"You never showed me your demo," Jared said after they'd finished eating. 

"Oh, yeah, cool, you wanna see?"

Jared nodded, smiling, got his laptop and handed it over to Richard, who furiously typed. Then he stopped, looked up.

"What?" Jared asked.

"Umm, so, like, I told you I had a stress reaction..." Richard had mentioned why he had this extended vacation, but didn't really want to use the phrase nervous breakdown. "and uhh, a symptom was it felt really bad to even just work on the computer with Pied Piper? But uh, that's like, gone. I'm actually really excited to get started again."

"That's good!"

"It is," Richard agreed. "this is like the one thing I'm good at, like what else am I gonna do, be a bouncer?" He moved his chair closer to Jared's, so they could both watch the screen. Jared smelled nice. Like fresh laundry or something. "Okay. So I downloaded an MP3, now I'm going to use it to search the last.fm library."

Richard opened the Pied Piper site and downloaded an .exe file, installed the music player and opened it. 

"Um, you have to install a separate music player to use the site, which then connects it to a second site?" Jared asked in a concerned tone.

"Yup," Richard said obliviously. "it plays pretty much every format and you can have like different skins and stuff for it!"

"Um. Okay."

Richard opened the MP3 file in the player and a Danny Brown song started playing. "So! While it plays, it's also searching the library for songs that sound the same."

"Uh, Richard?"

"Yeah, yeah, I know this isn't your style of music."

"No, I... you're telling me it's playing and searching at the same time?"

"Yeah, like I told you the other day."

"But it sounds so- oh, are those hits?"

"Yes! They generate in real time. As you can see, most of them are mislabelled versions of the same song, but here's also the song that the Danny Brown song samples!"

Jared waved his hand. "Can we rewind to how you managed to both search with and play a file while experiencing no audio loss?"

Richard smiled proudly. "Ah. I wrote a compression algorithm. When the files are smaller, it's easy."

Jared stared. "The file we're listening to is compressed? By how much?"

"Uh..." Richard went into the explorer and the Pied Piper folder's temp file. "let's see, this is a little over 400 kb. So by nearly 90%."

Jared touched his throat. "Richard, can I be very honest with you?"

"Yeah, man," Richard said. "uh, please."

"The Pied Piper music player and music search is unfundable. I'm sorry. It's clunky, has no revenue potential and anything music-related is a legal minefield."

"But, but-" Richard started.

"Hear me out," Jared said. "but your compression tech is... possibly revolutionary." He smiled excitedly and his voice got a kind of intimate hush over it. "Nobody else has this, Richard. Nobody else can do this. Hooli has stakes in five compression based companies, none of them are half as good as what you just showed me. That rate of compression, with no discernible quality loss? It's nuts."

Richard scratched his face. "Uh. Really?"

"I think if you pivot to compression, make it business facing - no music - you could get funded tomorrow. This has real, real potential. All the major streaming companies should form a line at your door, and that's just the most obvious example. I mean Bezos could make AWS even more insanely profitable with tech like this, I bet he'd give a fortune for it. I, um. I'd love to help you. I could even set up a one on one meeting with Gavin Belson for you, if you want."

Richard balled his fists and started moving his shoulders in what Jared realised was supposed to be a celebratory dance. He laughed. 

*

They spent most of the morning hashing out the bones of a business plan for Pied Piper. Richard had a ton of questions and Jared answered them as best he could. When it started to get darker in the afternoon Jared suggested they take a break and go for a walk while there was still some sunlight, so they got dressed and went out to walk along the South Bank. It was a cold day, and the streets were quiet. Most people were probably at home getting ready for Christmas Eve. They walked close enough their arms kept bumping into each other, but Jared didn't mind. They found an open crepes place and Richard had the cheapest one with just sugar on it, and Jared had one with chestnut paste and grand marnier. They were both delicious.

"Let's go see the Eiffel tower," Jared said.

"Well, we're not far off," Richard said.

"I'd love to go to the top."

Richard frowned. "Won't that cost money?" All he had left was a 20 euro note and some small change.

"My treat, you Scrooge."

So they walked to the Champ de Mars and took the elevator up to the top of the tower and had Paris before their feet. They could point out the Sacre Cæur, the Notre Dame ("I think I can even see our building!") the Louvre pyramid. It had gotten pretty dark and the city's lights made it look like a starry night sky. There were only a handful of other tourists up there with them. 

"This is probably crowded in summer," Jared said. "and we get to have it almost all to ourselves."

"Yeah. This is awesome, actually. I'm glad I came up here. It's like, steampunk." Richard got his Instax out. "Can I uh, take your photo?"

Jared smiled shyly. "Okay, if you want."

He posed in front of the view, smiled a close-lipped smile and tried not to blink when the flash went off.

"Is something wrong with it?" Jared asked, looking at the blank photo that printed out of the camera.

"No, it takes a while to develop is all."

"How analogue!"

"I'll tell you a drawback to coming up here in the middle of winter though," Richard said. "it's cold as fuuuuck."

Jared laughed. "I actually can't feel my ears."

Jared's ears were quite rightly bright red with the cold. Richard waved him closer with a hand. Jared smiled and leaned down.

"What?"

Richard took his gloves off and put his hands over Jared's ears. "Better?"

Jared laughed again. "Yes, actually! But I don't think this is a very good long term solution. I should probably look into a woolly hat. Maybe if your arms were longer."

Jared smiled at his own joke and let himself be pulled even further down by Richard's gentle insistence, and then Richard leaned up on his feet and kissed him. It was a very soft, quiet kiss and when Jared didn't pull away Richard smiled against his lips, and kissed him again. Jared grabbed onto Richard's waist and parted his lips for him. Suddenly, he couldn't feel the cold anymore. Richard's hands were hot like branding iron on his ears and his tongue was warm and teased against Jared's. With his ears covered all Jared could hear was the sound of his own heart beating and the muffled hum of Richard making sweet, involuntary little noises against him. Richard's hands slid from Jared's ears to his cheeks, stroking his face with the pads of his thumbs. Then he pulled away, changed his mind, and pressed one more little kiss against Jared's lips like a seal before standing back down.

Richard grinned that Las Vegas slot machine smile at him again. 

Jared didn't smile back.

What on earth was he doing? Nothing had changed since last night. They couldn't do this. He had to shut it down, properly, before he forgot why it was a terrible idea and got himself into real trouble.

"I'm sorry, Richard," he said in a thin voice. "I can't do this."

Richard's smile fell right off his face. "Uh buh? But um. Uh. Oh. Okay. Sorry, I, sorry, I thought..."

"It's okay," Jared assured. "I just can't. Please, just don't."

"No, no no, of course uh."

"Don't be mad at me. Please."

"I'm not, I'm not," Richard said, shoved his hands deep into his pockets and turned away to look out over the city.

They took the metro the few stops back to the apartment in silence. When they locked themselves in Richard kicked off his shoes and looked up at him.

"Oh uh, Jared, could you do me a favour, actually?"

"What?"

"Well uh, I'm like uh, I'm jonesing for some Red Bull, like, would you mind going down to the supermarket and buying some for me? I uh. I'd do it, but I'm so freaking cold and uh."

"Sure, Richard," Jared said gently. "there's some other stuff I need to pick up anyway."

"Cool! Cool. Uh, see you in a bit. Thank you."

Jared walked back out and down to the supermarket. It was only fifteen minutes til closing time when he got there, so he hurried through, picking up Richard's Red Bull but also some ravioli and pesto and red wine. He was determined to smooth over the fact they'd shared the most ludicrously romantic, old Hollywood, Funny Face if Fred Astaire was a pre-raphaelite gorgeous tech genius and not a creepy tap dancing OAP, kiss of Jared's life and pretend like nothing had happened. He'd get Richard talking about Pied Piper again, and help him work out a presentation. Yes indeed, his old friend PowerPoint would once again be an excellent mediator and chaperone.

He got back to the apartment about half an hour later, locked himself in. "Richard, I got us some- Richard?"

He looked around, confused. The door to the bathroom was open and he peeked in. He wasn't there either. He noticed a folded up piece of paper that said JARED on top of a white plastic bag with a record in it, placed on the sofa. Curiously, he opened the bag, and then he gasped loudly. It was the record! Barbara a L'Ecluse! He weighed it in trembling hands, looked around for wear and tear. It looked mint! How on earth had Richard managed- if that wasn't the sweetest, kindest, most thoughtful- how on earth had he been able to afford it? Maybe he got lucky, bought it from someone who didn't know what they had? And where the heck was he? 

Jared unfolded the paper and his tremulous smile faded as he read.

_Dear Jared,  
I'm really sorry to leave like this. I'm a total coward. Yesterday at the embassy they gave me my replacement passport and a ticket home, leaving tonight. I wasn't going to use it because I wanted to spend Christmas with you, because I really fucking like you, if you hadn't noticed. But you obviously don't feel the same way and that's fine!!! But I just had to go and make it weird and awkward, must be a day ending in Y. So I'm going to take that flight and get out of your hair. I borrowed your laptop, hope you don't mind, I just needed to let Emily know when the flight lands so she can meet me and drive me to our parents' house. Thank you SO MUCH for bailing me out and hanging out with me. You're really great, Jared. I hope you can forgive me.  
Richard  
PS: Your Christmas present is underneath this letter. Sorry I didn't get a chance to wrap it but I hope you like it!_

Jared stared at the letter. There was a lot to take in there, but on top of the list - "our parents"? "Our parents"? 

He flung open his laptop and logged into Facebook, searched for Emily Jones, the right one rising to the top of his results for being in his extended network. He sent a message. 

_Hello, are you Richard's sister?_

The reply was, thankfully, immediate. _Yes! Is something wrong?_

She was his sister! His _sister!_ He replayed their conversations in his head and realised the word "girlfriend" hadn't been mentioned at any point, he'd just made an assumption and treated it like fact. But- but why didn't they look alike! Why didn't they have the same last name! Why hadn't Richard, not even once, referred to her as "my sister Emily, who I definitely do not have sex with"!! There had been ample opportunity! Ample! F- frig!

 _Nothing wrong :)_ Jared wrote, slammed the laptop together and ran out the door. How far could Richard have come? 

*

As Jared was messaging Emily, Richard stepped on the train to the Charles de Gaulle airport. He found a seat, put his hand in his pocket and hit a hard piece of paper. He took it out, and realised it was the Instax photo he'd taken of Jared on top of the Eiffel tower, which had developed itself. Jared looked happy and handsome and a little shy, standing straight with his hands in his pockets. He could make out the city lights sparkling in the distance. Well, if somebody was going to break your heart, at least Paris provided a pretty backdrop.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I was looking at the items in the Silicon Valley auction lot and loved the facts that Jared's letter to his 40 year old self included the hope he'd "fall in love in Paris" and that his CV says he has "conversational French" ([link](https://auction.screenbid.com/view-auctions/catalog/id/126/lot/69877/?url=%2Fview-auctions%2Fcatalog%2Fid%2F126%3Fcat%3D2018%26page%3D1%26key%3D%26xclosed%3Dno)). As always, I strive for realism in my writing....
> 
> Just one chapter left of this nonsense now!


	5. Chapter 5

Jared rushed down the streets, looking for Richard's green parka and brown suitcase. He ran into the Saint-Michel station, looked around frantically. He really hoped Richard hadn't taken a taxi. On the train he tried to calm himself down, get his pulse to stop racing. God, he'd been so stupid. He could have asked some questions himself about Emily, gotten it all cleared up right away, they'd done nothing but talk for days. But he hadn't wanted to talk about Richard's girlfriend, had he? He'd wanted to pretend she didn't exist. When it turns out she never actually did in the first place. He groaned out loud and the middle-aged woman across from him shot him a concerned look.

"Ca va?"

*

Richard stopped in front of the Relay newsagent in the airport. He looked in his wallet. He had six euros left. Wow, pathetic. He was kind of hungry, what the hell could six euros buy him? Like maybe a shitty sandwich? At least there'd be food on the plane. He went in and bought a sandwich and a very small chocolate bar. He was now down to... 5 cents. Thank god he was going home. 

Sighing, he dragged his suitcase down towards the check-in line. 

*

Jared tried to relax but the train was just extremely frickin slow? His fellow passengers had flights to catch? Was this normal? He bit his knuckle. He wondered what he'd say if he - no, when, when he managed to catch up to Richard. Nothing particularly came to mind. "Sorry, I thought you were sleeping with your sister." "Oh, hey Richard, what a coincidence running into you here." "Hey, remember when you kissed me on top of the Eiffel tower and I was like, oh, no thanks, not for me? Can I have a do-over?" He groaned again.

"Sure que ca va monsieur?" 

*

Richard finally reached the end of the damn check in line. Why were people so fucking slow.

"Bon soir, monsieur."

"Yeah, yeah, uh. Here's my ticket and uh, my passport."

"Very well, are you travelling with luggage tonight sir?"

And Richard lifted up his suitcase.

*

Jared got off at the airport and pushed his way through the crowd, apologising all the way. He ran down the hallways and tried to find the check in line for the next flight to New York. He skidded to a halt when he finally found it, and started jogging alongside the line, seeing if he could find Richard. He reached the end of it. Someone got handed their boarding card and Jared cut in line after them.

"What the fuck do you think you're doing?" a guy in his sixties said behind him.

"I'm not checking in, don't worry," Jared said. "can uh, can you just tell me real quick if Richard Hendricks has checked in?" he asked the woman at the desk.

The guy put his hand on his shoulder. "Get to the back of the line!"

Jared turned to him. "I understand your anger," he said placatingly. He turned back to the employee. "so that's h, e, n-"

"Um uh Jared?"

Jared's head whipped to the side and he saw Richard, getting to his feet, his suitcase open on the floor. Jared gasped a little, took a long step over and pulled Richard into a hug. Richard yelped with surprise, his arms trapped between them. 

"I thought I missed you."

Richard struggled away and Jared let go. "Uh, you almost did, but my fucking suitcase is too heavy and I don't have any money to pay for the excess weight. I'm trying to put some stuff in my hand luggage so I don't have to throw anything away. What- what are you doing here, Jared?"

"I got it all wrong, I'm sorry," he said. "I thought Emily was your girlfriend."

Richard scrunched up his face. "Ew!"

"I'm sorry!"

"Wait, so whenever I tried to like, make, a, move, you thought I was some creepy little cheater?" Richard sounded and looked genuinely offended.

"No, no... yes," Jared said guiltily. 

Richard shook his head, looked away. 

"Don't go?" Jared asked. "Stay for Christmas? I um... I really fricking like you too. I do."

Richard sort of danced from foot to foot a little, bit his lip and looked up at him. 

"Go on," someone in the line said. "stay with the guy. It's Christmas."

"Yeah, he came running into the airport for you," someone else chimed in. 

"What the fuck," Richard said, taken aback. "hu. Audience participation," he mumbled. "ugh."

One last ditch shot. Jared leaned down, tilted Richard's chin up, and kissed his mouth softly, held it for a breath.

"Please?" he said in a tremulous voice.

And there was that slot machine smile again. "Yeah, okay."

Spontaneous applause burst out in the line and Richard leaned in to whisper in Jared's ear. "Can you help me pack up my stuff so we can leave as quick as possible? This is so embarrassing."

* 

They didn't talk much on the train ride back to the city centre, but Richard's hand was in Jared's and his head was leaning against Jared's shoulder.

*

Back at the apartment building, Jared walked a little in front, opened the door and stepped aside to let Richard in. Richard put his suitcase in its corner. Jared closed the door, talked to cover his nervousness.

"So oh! I- I haven't even said thank you for the, for the record-" he pulled off his jacket, kicked off his shoes. "it's-- oh, it's perfect, Richard, I don't understand how you- how did you manage to find it?"

"Just lucky. Heh." Richard took off his shoes, his jacket, his scarf.

"I just- well I don't understand how you could afford it, how much did you, how-"

"Did you look inside?" Richard pulled off his hoodie.

Jared stared at him. "In... inside?"

Richard loosened his belt.

"Look inside, on the inner cover."

"I, uh. Yes, I." Jared opened it and looked, then his eyes nearly bugged out when he saw the dedication. He looked up at Richard. "No."

"Yeah, baby," Richard grinned, stepped out of his pants. He walked over and flipped the sofa up, folded it out and climbed on top of it. He reached behind his back and pulled his T-shirt over his head. 

"There are too many good things happening at once right now," Jared said, looking from the record to Richard. "I'm not sure what to do."

"Would you like to play it? Or is it more a, keep it in plastic and looked at it every once in a while situation." Richard tossed his T-shirt on the floor.

"I play all my records," Jared said. "and yes, I'd love to play it." He sat down at the edge of the bed with his back to Richard, reverently extracted the disc from the inner cover, placed it on the surface, released a breath he hadn't known he was holding, registered Richard shifting behind him, dropped the needle. Through the static a simple piano and a voice as clear and precise as a bell shone through. Jared swallowed and turned around. Richard was sitting naked, propped up on an arm, looked expectantly up at him. 

"Gosh. You're so. Um." Jared decided nothing he could say could make this moment better. He leaned in and kissed Richard. Richard pulled him down on top of him, pulled the fabric of his jumper into his fist.

* 

Jared pushed slowly into Richard and Richard whimpered, his hands found purchase on the sheets. Jared leant down and touched his forehead to Richard's.

"Are you okay? Is this too much?"

"It's uh it's good, don't, don't stop," Richard whispered. 

"You're so handsome," Jared said, stroked Richard's face with the back of his hand. 

Richard smiled an only slightly strained smile. "Yeah?"

"Yes," Jared said, pushed until he was all the way inside, and Richard's head tilted backwards and his back arched, lips parting on a gasp to reveal big, white front teeth. "so handsome."

* * *

**DECEMBER 25h**

"Hey, Jared, hey, wake up."

Jared blinked awake, a little confused, and smiled when he saw Richard sitting on his haunches with two mugs in his hands, offering him one. He raise himself up on an elbow and accepted it.

"What's this?"

"Merry Christmas," Richard said. 

"Merry Christmas," Jared beamed back, a little drowsily. "um, Richard, it's 7am, we don't have to get up yet."

"Of course we do, now we drink hot chocolate and open presents."

"Presents?"

Richard handed him the other mug too, crawled over to his suitcase and pulled out a plastic bag full of wrapped presents, emptied it on the bed. Jared, feeling there were too many elements introduced to the bed at once, put both the mugs over on the windowsill and sat up properly. Richard grabbed a big present and handed it to Jared.

"Here you go."

"What is this?"

"Well, technically, it's for my dad. But you open it."

Jared laughed. "You're ridiculous."

"Come on, come on, come on."

Jared shook his head, then opened it. It was a green fleece vest. He looked at it. "You know, I actually quite like this."

"Yeah? Then, like, keep it."

"No, Richard, don't be stupid, I can buy my own. It really is nice though, I'm cold a lot."

"Keep it, keep it, keep it. I have literally five cents left of the emergency cash from the embassy so I'm going to have to get my parents to wire me some money when the banks open anyway, I'll buy him another present at the airport."

Jared blushed. "Well, thank you. If you're sure."

"Okay, now you give me one."

Jared grinned, handed him a present from the pile. Richard feigned ignorance and opened it. "Oh, it's a shawl with little cranes on it. I already have like eight of these so I think I'll pass it on to my mom instead."

Jared laughed. 

"Um oh," Richard said, gave him a look and dug through the present pile for a little, square, heavy present. "here. Um, if you like this, you can have this one too, like, for real."

Jared grinned and opened it. "This feels so naughty. Okay, let's see... oh, it's a scented candle! Paris sous la neige. Oh, how lovely!"

"You like it?"

Jared looked incredibly guilty and blushed. "I do! Oh, no. It's not for me. But I do."

Richard laughed. "It's yours, okay?"

They opened the rest of the presents, too. There were candies and kitchen utensils and socks with the eiffel tower on it and comic books. 

"You're going to have to re-wrap all of this," Jared said, sipping on his lukewarm chocolate in the debris of the presents. 

"Eh, fuck it. It won't be Christmas anymore when they get it."

Jared smiled warmly. "Thank you, Richard. This was fun. I wish I had something for you."

"You're right, you've done nothing for me these last few days."

Jared laughed. 

"Hey, wanna watch a movie?"

"Okay," Jared said. "what did you have in mind?"

"Have you ever seen Scrooged?"

"No," Jared said.

Richard's eyes went wide. "Oh, we're watching Scrooged." He flopped over to grab for Jared's laptop on the floor and Jared grabbed Richard's mug before it spilled all over. Richard sat back up next to him, typed. "Wait can I post on Facebook quick? Is it okay if I tag you?"

"Umm," Jared said. "sure."

 _Merry Christmas from Paris [with Jared Dunn]_ Richard wrote and hit enter.

"That's it?" Jared smiled.

"Yeah uh," Richard said and shrugged. "I just wanted to let people know I was alive. And uh. With. You."

Jared bit his lip, took the laptop off him, folded it together and put it back on the floor. 

"Hey, what about the movie?" Richard said.

"Mmhmm," Jared nodded, slid down on his back and pulled Richard down on top of him. 

Outside, it started to snow again.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Please check out [this moodboard ladollyvita made for this fic](https://ladollyvitam.tumblr.com/post/189617568946/show-chapter-archive) if you haven't seen it already it's perfect ;_;
> 
> I wrote a sappy little [sketch sequel](https://archiveofourown.org/works/22364092/chapters/53428249) too!


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